A Shattered Life

I’d like to share with one of the short stories imparted to us by one of the speakers as part of the latest Information Systems Communication Session a couple of weeks ago. I forgot the name mentioned and we were not informed of the author so please bear with me if I changed the story as told. I’m retelling the story with the best of my memory.

The King and His Trusted Servant

Once upon a time, there was a King named Lim Ah Hong and he has a trusted servant friend named Lin Feng. The king loves to hunt in the forest and he always tag along Lin Feng who willingly and happily oblige. The servant carries and loads the gun while Lim Ah Hong will fire the shot. Ling Feng occasionally fires the guns, too. No wonder they enjoy what they are doing.

However, in one of their hunting trips, tragedy struck. The gun misfired which at that early age of the weapon, is very common. Unfortunately, the accident severed Lim Ah Hong’s finger and since Lin Feng is the one who prepares the gun, he thought it was him who is to blame. The king is very furious with his servant and sent him to prison. The poor guy cannot do anything as it was the king who sent him there.

But the tragedy did not stop the king from his favorite past time. And even without his buddy, he goes alone hunting. Unfortunately, another tragedy struck. In one of his lone hunting trips, he was captured by the cannibals in the wilderness. They brought the king in their village and he was readied for a feast.

But in the process of preparing the for a meal, they noticed that he has a missing finger. The cannibals, being superstitious, believe that a person who has missing finger is not fit for eating. They believe that if they eat a man with missing finger, bad luck and tragedy will come upon them. In the end, they let Lim Ah Hong, leave their village almost unscathed afraid of getting the bad luck that comes with the king.

With the unexpected and fortunate scape from sure death brought about by his injury, the king is very happy and thankful with his servant who he believes is the cause of the accident. Immediately, he set his friend free and summoned him to his court.
And he said to him, “I must thank you for had you not cause my injury, I would have been eaten by the cannibals. I am very sorry if I sent you to prison“. But to his astonishment, Lin Feng replied, “No, your majesty. I should be the one who must be thankful to you” The startled king then ask, “But why? I sent you to prison and given you undue harm” Lin Feng replied, “My king, had you not sent me to prison, I would be with you when the cannibals captured you. And I would have been the one eaten!”

Reflections

It’s one of my current favorite short stories. Some of you may find the story funny and amusing but beside that, it shows us that everything happens for a reason. Everything is part of the grand plan that God himself engineered. But whether we admit it or not, we take him for granted most of the time as the first thing we do is to gripe and whine every time we encounter trials.

For all we know, every problem that comes are way are just trials to test your wit and mettle. As in these challenges, we find Him and appreciate his blessings. All we need to is just hang on.

I have been using VMWare for several years and find it very useful especially on my former field of work. As our team was supporting several countries with multiple applications, virtualization is definitely like a gift from heaven. It solved the problem in hardware and space as we can have multiple virtual environments on our PCs and laptops.

On a more personal note, I created separate VM for my wife (oracle) and for me (sql server + visual basic). A separate VM was also created for Linux(no more dual boot) which I use to familiarize myself with that OS (linux/unix is now a necessity on my new job). So imagine, I all have these in one box and virtualization allows me to be more flexible. And the backup? Never been easier. I can backup the whole environment and not just the data. And yes, I can bring the virtual image in another PC and use it there. Easy, eh!

And something that good can’t be free, right? Wrong! You can download a free version of VMWare free of charge. Of course, the free version has a lot of limitations (like creating your own image) but it just do its job. But despite that limitation, you can freely download virtual images from the internet. I download thoughtpolice images as their torrent feeds are fast while I use an image I created from my former office laptop installed with the paid version of VMWare.

But there’s a problem with VMWare, its footprint is heavy and large. Aside from that, you will not be able to adjust the size of your virtual harddisk unless you go for the paid version. The more you become dependent on it, the more you want to buy a license.

And then comes VirtualBox from Sun. A GNU/GPL Licensed(FREE) virtualization system that has a very small footprint (it installs on 30MB of HD) and you’ll get everything what a VMWare Workstation offers. It adds more flexibility and starts faster. And since it comes from Sun, you can count on its quality. It’s simply awesome!

errr… for the very few that reads my blog, you may not really need it. But who knows, you may need it for some reason.

Last Friday, Oct 31, the whole Information Services department of my current employer had its quarterly meeting. It’s like a townhall meeting that is done to update the employees on where the group (and the company in general) is heading. I must admit that I was awed with what was presented by head of the department(Alex) and his deputy(David).

The activity was opened, as usual, by Alex with a inspiring story and then together with David, they gave us a sneak preview…. no, a considerably detailed preview, of the things to come the organization. Unlike the previous meeting, the duo has presented a coherent plan on where to bring the organization. It embodies the SMART planning which is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Based.

Foremost of the plan is the implementation of critical success factors. Some of them were already implemented and basically, there’s much to be done. And I was impressed with how they embedded work-life balance in the plan. They clearly laid out what they want to achieve, how to achieve it, and how all the stakeholders(especially employees) will benefit from it. There’s also a mention of salary and benefit adjustments though it was also stated that based on the latest studies, the company is still on top percentile rank in terms of employee compensation and they plan to continue to be there.

I hope I can get a copy of the slides presented by David and share some of them with you. I also didn’t get the chance to jot it down as I was afraid that I miss something with what David is telling us. But one important part of the Critical Success Factors presented is the need to change. The need to break the status quo. We need to challenge ourselves to continue to perform better and provide better value to the needs of the company and its customers.

This type of townhall meeting is one of the things what my former employer failed to deliver to the employees. Yes, they tried but I think they need to try harder. MG tried and continues to try but the culture in the company is a big stumbling block getting on his way.

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Rant 1:
Oh well, I don’t know why but on my first year with my former employer, they had this Project Unison that was implemented with Accenture. It involved sweeping changes in the processes that did not sit well with the ‘veterans’, especially the whiners. It’s a pain in the ass but in the end, it made us perform better. We delivered tangible results to our customers and put us on our toes all the time. It was an endless step up but it helped put us in a better shape and ready to face the world. After all, the best practices implemented help the organization achieve CMMI level 1. And though they did not apply for higher level of certification, I think they already achieve that. It’s just that they have to maintain what they achieved and continue to step up because clearly, there’s much more that can be done. I say ‘They’ because I’m no longer part of that organization.

And guess what, my current employer is going into that direction (CMMI) in the next few months. Luckily, I am better prepared. Oh, did I tell you that I’m working with Accenture right now? They are the vendor for the CRM project and as part of the participation of the company in the project, they lent some of their IT staff. That included me. And yes, I’m reporting to an Accenture manager.

Rant 2:
I remember in one of the “coffee meeting with the GM” in my previous employer, the HR manager revealed that they want to be at the 70% percentile rank in compensation. According to them, the company is at the 90+% level and the management isn’t happy with that. That meant less increase and less benefits. And here in my employer in Singapore, the company want to stay at the top and keep their employees happy. I’m not basking my former employee but I’m just presenting a fact.